Bishop Mouneer Anis

This morning’s bible study, the very rich study that was given to us by Archbishop John Chew reminded me of a story, a story which happened in Egypt, and particularly it happened in Alexandria.     It happened in the third century.    There was a gifted preacher and intelligent priest and his name was Arius.    And Arius had many followers, and he wanted to reconcile the Christian faith, and the essentials of faith with the Greek philosophy, so that the Greek philosophers who were living in Alexandria would actually accept the idea of the triune God.    But by doing this he made Christ less divine.   And because of this there was a division in the church in Alexandria.    There were faithful people, and there were heretics.   And the faithful people were getting less, and smaller and smaller.   But they fought persistently and without ceasing.   And the heretics started to increase and increase, and they got the support of the Emperor; one after another, until the Arians became a bigger church.